


Spotlight

by effywho



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Humour, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:38:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effywho/pseuds/effywho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It would be fair to say, I think, that Sherlock Holmes was a celebrity. This fact – which both amused and concerned John Watson in equal measure – was getting harder to ignore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spotlight

**Spotlight**

It would be fair to say, I think, that Sherlock Holmes was a celebrity. This fact – which both amused and concerned John Watson in equal measure – was getting harder to ignore.

Every day they were flooded with emails and letters. Most were fan mail. Many were requests for assistance, and most of those Sherlock discarded for any reason from disinterest to speculating that the potential client had suspicious handwriting – something which he then went in to explain in great detail to an exasperated John, before tearing the offending letter to shreds.

Websites had begun to spring up. Some of them were innocent enough. Some of them were intent on tracking Sherlock's every move and identifying everything from where he lived to what brand of deodorant he wore. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that some of Sherlock's fans were becoming rather good at the deduction technique. Well, either that or they were stalking him and catching slightly too much information from the crime scenes, where they often turned up in hope of seeing Sherlock in action. As well as this they seemed to have fairly active imaginations, and before long the websites were inundated with drawings and stories involving Sherlock and, much to John's embarrassment, himself. Somehow the fact that some of it was actually quite good made it even more confusing. John had dutifully kept tabs on all of this, until the content became so vast and unmanageable that it began to feel like a second job. And after catching sight of some particularly explicit fan art, John realised that the situation was entirely out of his control. 

Worst of all, Sherlock was shockingly lax on the topic. He remained baffled with the concept of fans, and soon ruled it irrelevant to his life, only stopping to now and then to laugh at their antics over John's shoulder. On one occasion he had caught sight of a ridiculous cartoon drawing of John in pin-up military wear, burst into laughter, and declared that it was to be placed pride-of-place on the fridge. For all John's efforts to prevent this, Sherlock triumphed. Not only did he put a copy on the fridge, but he also managed to cover one of John's bedroom walls in it, as well as giving several copies to Mrs Hudson for Christmas. After making the grave mistake of mentioning this in a blog post, for some comic-relief in a particularly dark entry, John would receive the image on a regular basis in the post, often accompanied by a wildly appreciative fan message from a teenage girl. Or, one time, with a wildly appreciative fan that turned out to be from Bill Murray.

Despite all this, Sherlock stayed adamant that no one was interested in him until an incident shortly after his most well-reported case to date: the recovery of the Reichenbach Falls.

It was in the wake of a movie night. These had become a standard event in the 221B calendar. As much as Sherlock complained that the films were unrealistic, terribly written, or just physically impossible, there was no denying that he enjoyed watching them with John. It was fascinating to him. It was a cosy, even. More perplexingly to Sherlock, that did not bother him in the slightest. The pair of them usually ended up tangled together on the sofa, in a way which would have left John somewhat flustered to be discovered in, but it was really only the natural progression of events:  
Sherlock complained, John turned the telly up, Sherlock muttered his critique straight into John's ear only to be laughed at, leading to Sherlock flouncing up and flopping on top of him like a maiden in distress. John would then snort and begin to push popcorn into Sherlock's curls until he noticed, which always took longer than it should because John's chest turned out to be one of the frighteningly few places Sherlock would allow himself to fall asleep.

On this particular morning, they both woke up sporting dead legs and buzzing heads. After climbing out from under Sherlock's droopy embrace, John checked his phone to find several missed calls and messages from Lestrade.

John knocked the popcorn out of Sherlock's hair, successfully startling him into consciousness. The gangly man jumped blearily to his feet and stumbled over them in quick succession. The whole thing was pretty comical looking, and Sherlock pretended to be annoyed when John made a noise that was either a giggle or a charily controlled cough.

Both men then hurried to get into day clothes and attempt to soothe the distinctly "bed head" look they had both acquired somewhere in the course of the night. This inevitably failed, and they left the flat with John tiredly fretting about the day ahead. It wasn't looking good.

The first sign of a disturbance was when they drew up to The Yard. A crowd was growing: thin at first, and turning into a good-sized flock of fast-talking people. There must have been 50, maybe 60 people gathered. Getting out of the cab, Sherlock and John both took a belting to the ear drums. The noise was unintelligible, it was loud, and it seemed to be aimed at them.

John's instincts were stalling, this was not normal. But they were  _fans,_ he told himself. They were, apparently,  _excited_ to see them. For some inconceivable reason they were craning to get a good look. Press were strewn through the mass of people, the flashbulbs all that told them apart from the variety of men and women, their ages not even close to a single demographic. As the crowd began to close in John was torn. Horribly, he felt threatened, and by extension he felt that Sherlock was threatened; a worrying combination. His hand had predictably fallen to were the gun would have been concealed in his coat. He was slipping.

All the while, Sherlock was not unaware of John's thought process and was surprisingly relieved to see that John was unarmed today. He had known the man long enough to know that this needed to end quickly or someone would bear the brunt; unlikely one of the screaming mass, but most definitely John when he later came to his senses. It was impossible to act other than to get a tight grip around John's arm, something which was met with an explosion of camera flash. John flinched at the glaring light, his face turning into the cover of Sherlock's towering frame. He leaned further into Sherlock's hold gratefully, breathing heavily. Sherlock shook John's hand gently. It was a small gesture, but it was enough to shake John momentarily, and Sherlock relaxed as he saw John's arms fall limp at his side. 

At that moment a young women threw herself forward with an autograph book, signalling a tidal wave of movement.

_Mob psychology,_ Sherlock noted mentally. It was strangely interesting to watch how they fed from each other's actions and acted as one body rather than many bodies. They were anonymous and unafraid. Had they doubled in number?

He did not have long to contemplate this; two burly police officers that he didn't recognise pushed towards them, jackets luminous and faces severe. In minutes they had Sherlock and John between them, and together they faced the madness of the surrounding crowd.

Once safe inside they were met by a wide-eyed DI Lestrade, who gave them both a stern word on security before demanding they accept some cheap machine coffee, which he paid for with a never-ending amount of silver change.

It was insane, he said. Someone must have tipped them off. They were looking into it, he said.

Sherlock and John didn't care. They were both too stunned; even John who had been painfully aware of Sherlock's progression to stardom. Was it the blog? It had did seem to have gained a kind of cult following. Or was it the newspaper write-ups, which had sprung up everywhere recently, which had caused the boom? Those were unofficial and unapproved by John, who screened what he wrote carefully to protect themselves and their clients, something which the papers had delighted in tearing into and exposing the truth behind. It was all very frustrating.

A shuffle of unwilling footsteps approached.

Lestrade seemed to be pushing Anderson along in front of him. It was not an unheard of sight, but an entertaining all the same.

There was a moment of amused silence in which Sherlock and John looked on while Anderson stuttered out something that sounded very much like an apology.

John choked on cheap coffee.

Sherlock had a look on his face that was so gleeful that it could only be explained if Anderson had just confessed to having a massive crush on an inanimate object or Father Christmas.

"I may have...mentioned something on Facebook about you being called in today," Anderson continued in undertone, beetroot red in the face. Lestrade's glare pressed him to explain further. "I had been getting an influx of friend requests, but...I didn't consider that they might have been  _fans_ of yours. Um...they must have spread the message over the internet. So sorry, I suppose."

Lestrade coughed indiscreetly.

Anderson looked around uncomfortably and then flung up his arms in despair. "I didn't know you were  _internet_  famous!"

This was too much for the pair, and within seconds they had caught each other's eye and burst into spontaneous laughter.

John clutched Sherlock's Belstaff, who was fighting the sudden urge to take the shorter man's hand in front of half of Scotland Yard. No, that couldn't be it.

"It's fine," John managed. He looked at Sherlock, who  was trying to regain composure, but his eyes were sparkling with subdued humour, and his mouth fought against its firm-lined nonchalance. It was enough to make John smile, he wanted to reach up to touch his friends lips.

Lestrade coughed again. John's eyes stuttered to his feet.

"Yes?" Sherlock asked irritably, his own eyes still fixed on John.

John put his hands purposefully in his pockets, balling them in tightly. "Let's just go home."

London would find something else to obsess over. John wasn't sure he ever would.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for more from a collection of vaguely connected stories about Sherlock and John discovering they accidentally in the most important relationship of their lives and what is that all about?! *crowd cheers quietly*
> 
> note-these are alternative versions of drabbles I originally posted on fanfiction.net a while back also under the name effywho


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